Hey all, I'm having a problem where no matter what I am playing on my computer, my games always freeze. First I'll give you my specs:

Gigabyte EP43-DS3L Motherboard
Intel Q6600 CPU @ 2.4GHz (Stock)
4GB GSkill DDR2 800
Vistiontek HD3870 Graphics Card
320GB Seagate HDD
600Watt PSU

-My graphics card never goes over 55C.
-My CPU never goes over 40C

I'm pretty sure it's my CPU that's causing the problem. My motherboard has 4 colored LED lights that monitor CPU load (Level 1 - Green; Level 2 - Green; Level 3 - Yellow; Level 4 - Red (Red being at full load)). Whenever one of my games freezes, like CoD:4, I get the skipping noise that happens whenever you get a BSOD or a freeze. Soon after that my indicator lights work their way up to red. Does anyone have any idea what may be causing my games to freeze? This is a completely new build and there is no dust in it and I know those temperatures above are well within range, so this can't be a heat issue.

Thanks in advanced.

VGA Driver 90% is to be blame imo

I have the newest Catalyst drivers off of ATI's site (I already know that they don't have the greatest reputation for their graphics card drivers). Do you know any 3rd party guys that make good ATI drivers?

ATI's drivers are good. It's Nvidia who's messed up drivers recently (Vista), and even they got them fixed. Sadly, one bad driver set from years ago can create a rep.

Make sure you have old drivers uninstalled completely before installing new drivers. You might need to use a registry cleaner to remove the drivers. Then boot to VGA mode and install new drivers before going into standard mode.

I had a friend who had a similar problem.

He has the exact same motherboard as you. He also has a e8400 and a 8800GT. He said about 10 minutes in to the game it would freeze and the whole system would reboot.

However after that he could play for 4 hours or more and it would be fine.

This happened on a regular basis. I think he fixed it by updating the bios on his MOBO.

600Watt PSU ??

I'd say overheating, but I doubt thats an issue at 2.4 GHz...

Update your bios, the early p4x series chipsets had a problem with VGA cards. Its fixed now

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support [...] uctID=2847

Shotty drivers

hows the fan speed on gpu does it speed up/down when you are playing or does it just ramp up/down at start up

It's not overheating guys so that's out, I've fixed the fan issue with my Hd3870 with Rivatuner.

Thanks Skittle I got those, it's just that I've never updated my BIOS before. Do I have to stick those files on a floppy and use QFLASH?

Yes BobWya a 600 Watt Power Supply Unit.

You can get the bios here http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support [...] leID=13679 and the manual here if you dont have it http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support [...] leID=18624 check out section 4-2,4-2-1 and 4-2-2 hope this helps

Hey guys thanks for your help but I just noticed something. I had to RMA my first EP43 board due to a BIOS ROM failure. Newegg messed up and sent me back an EP45 board. So I'll go get those files and not the 43 files.

Still freezes with the BIOS updates =\

I didn't think that all would be good until playing a game its almost got to be a driver like chechnyan said and i think it is temps causing it what do you have rivtuner fan set at???

Here are my Rivatuner settings for my graphics card fan.

Fan Speed at 54% when temps are <50C
Fan Speed at 60% when temps are between 50C and 55C
Fan Speed at 70% when temps are between 55C and 60C
Fan Speed at 80% when temps are between 60C and 65C
Fan Speed at 90% when temps are between 65C and 70C
Fan Speed at 100% when temps are >70C

I was able to play Call of Dootie for around 30 minutes last time and I had Rivatuner's Hardware monitor on; the monitor showed that my graphics card never went above 65C. It's idling around 43C right now.

Driver issue? I uninstalled my ATI drivers and replaced them with Omega's ATI drivers.

Is rivturner set on auto? if it is do you hear fan speed increase as temps go up? I have only got rivatuner to work on fixed settings. I had same problem but i had to bump up to 70% on fixed setting. i have a 3870x2 for cod4 not to crash on me

No, I have my fan programed at those levels. I can hear the fan go up and down and the noise does correspond to the fan level : temp.

Here's a screenie of my Rivatuner. You can tell when I started playing and when I stopped. The temp doesn't go above 65C, isn't that a stable temp?

The different colors are fan levels.
http://img175.imageshack.us/img175 [...] 949au8.jpg

then the only thing i can think of is power dropping how are your voltages doing are they jumping around?Also you might try reinstalling netframe2 also. but please if you find what is causing problem let me know

After thought try using fix setting on rivatuner @70% just to see!!

Ok, I read on another forum that underclocking your card may help, should I do this?